Above is a photo of Yoshi the chameleon, that I took yesterday.  We let Yoshi out of his vivarium sometimes, to get exercise and a chance to see the world.  Or at least part of it. 

Chameleons are arboreal (tree-dwelling) creatures and they have a strong God-given instinct to go UP.  They like to climb high and survey their domain and keep on the lookout for anything that might trouble them.  

We've put a living plant on the bay window sill, and an artificial plant on the window, to give Yoshi something to climb on.  He loves to sit half on the artificial plant, and half on the window-latch, and look out.  Sometimes he scrabbles on the glass, not understanding why he can't get through.   He often seems like he is yearning to go outside.  When he scratches and scrabbles at the glass he seems desparate to get out, to climb the plants outside that will let him go still higher, and to enjoy the great vistas afforded of our road.

I'm sure Yoshi, if you gave him a survey, would list one of his main "felt needs" as getting outside (along with being left alone, and being given all the waxworms he can eat, which are contradictory desires , but maybe chameleons are a bit postmodern).   Being outside would make him happy, and fulfill his longings, he thinks.

But it would not be good for him, and he would not survive very long, if we were to meet that felt need and let him go outdoors.  The British climate is not a good one for a Yemen chameleon.  It is too cold, and there would not be enough food for him at this time of year.  Yoshi would soon die,  even if he escaped from predators.

Felt needs are often not indicators of true needs.

Jeremiah 17:9  The heart is deceitful above all things,and desperately sick; who can understand it? (ESV)

My daughter and I received new Bibles today.  I had ordered them in March, from CBD and they arrived today.

My daughters is an NIV "Bible in a Bag" - you can see it here.  It's a nice handy little size and although it's small the print size is legible even for me without my varifocals.  I'd get one for myself if I liked the NIV - in fact I might be tempted to get one anyway as I don't already have an NIV.  It was only $11.99, and in the catalogue I have it says if you order 3 or more the price goes down to $9.99.

My new Bible is another ESV.  You can see a photo of it here.  It is a smaller size than the ESV I already have, yet the print is not too small.  It may not stand up to my regular markers so I will have to find some others, if even just some colored pencils.  My new Bible was only $15.99, which is pretty good I think. 

Since I'm talking about Bibles, I want to share with you this information about a great offer.  If you are in the US, you can buy Outreach Editions of the ESV New Testament at certain Christian bookshops, for only 50 cents!!  Here is a page that you can visit to find out more and locate a shop in your area.  I wish I was back home, because I would sure stock up on some of these!  I did order one from Amazon, although it cost £1.00 and a bit.   I hope I can get some more and hand them out.   Let me know if you order any of these, and how you've used them. 

For those interested, I recommend this post by Dan Phillips on The Astonishing Jesus.  A very short excerpt:

He tells them to pray. What would you tell them to pray?

At Tim Challies' suggestion I, with others, am posting my testimony today.

I was raised in a home where my mother professed Christianity, but my father did not.  My maternal grandmother was a Christian too, and I remember when staying at her house being taken to Vacation Bible School in the summer.

I was baptised in a Methodist church as a baby, and attended a Baptist kindergarten on Guam (though I don't remember attending church then).   I think we attended some Protestant church in Japan at least occasionally but I don't remember clearly.  A few years after we moved to Tulsa we began attending a Unitarian church.  This must have been a compromise between my parents, as my mother would have wanted to attend church, but my father, as a non-Christian, would not have been happy in a Christian church.

I was given a Good News Bible when I was around 7 or 8 and we still lived in Japan.  I remember reading it, and although I already had positive feelings about the Bible, Jesus and God, reading it led to some misunderstandings possibly due to some of the pictures in it (like I began to think it was wrong to count your money!).  I found Jesus quite a tough character.   I wanted to love Him but I was also afraid of Him.  His standards seemed to be so high, and he did not brook foolishness, it seemed to me.

As a preteen I began searching, wanting to know God and be sure I went to heaven.  Being in Tulsa, "the buckle of the Bible belt", there were loads of Christian tracts to be found, and I would read them when I did find them.  Lots of them were Chick tracts, as I recall.  (This would have been in the mid-70's.)  I asked my friends who went to church, about their church.  At that time, I verbalized my spiritual need as "trying to find a good church."   Various friends witnessed to me in our last year of elementary school, and into junior high school.   I remember knowing that I was a sinner, but when I asked various adults about sin, they said it was really bad things like murder, or robbery.  I hadn't done any of those type things, but I knew that I was a sinner, and if Jesus didn't help me out, I was in big trouble.   The Spirit of God was convicting me of my sin.

I'm sure that I believed the Gospel message that those tracts proclaimed, and I did pray the prayer that they usually included in the back - several times.   I did believe I was a sinner, that Jesus Christ had paid the price for my sins, and was the only way to be justified before a Holy God.   I lacked assurance, though, so I kept praying that prayer.  My father was not a Christian and my mother was not interested in the more fundamentalist (Nazarene, SBC, and others) churches that I was trying out, and she was busy working full-time and getting a degree,  so I didn't have a lot of help at home.   I went along the first two years of junior high, believing in Jesus, but not having assurance, and trying out different churches as school friends would take me.  I'm really grateful to those parents who picked me up and brought me along to see what their church was like (sometimes they didn't actually go regularly, like the Catholic family who took me).

Towards the end of 8th grade, when I was 14, a Southern Baptist friend, who had witnessed to me for a few years, took me to Eastwood Baptist church.  At the end, there was an invitation, and I felt that I should go forward.  I asked Darlene if she would go with me, and she gently said, "of course".  So I did go forward, and ended up praying the same prayer I had prayed so many times, and afterwards was introduced to the congregation as one who had prayed to receive Christ. 

Assurance didn't come all at once, but I think that the public profession of faith really helped me.  I could pinpoint a time when I had actually done something that demonstrated my faith in Jesus Christ.  I felt that I had done something I was supposed to do, confess Him before men, in a way that I had not done before, although I would have agreed to any of the fundamentals of the faith for several years before.   My story certainly does not end there, but it marks a good beginning.   I was different after that day, or that period of time anyway.  I tried my best to make decisions that would please God.  I had an awareness of God, of His watching me, of my need of Him, that I had not had before.

I think God, by the Holy Spirit, used His word, a nominally Christian upbringing, tracts left anonymously, testimonies from friends, Gospel message with an invitation, and probably a few other means, to bring me to Himself, and I am grateful.   

The Gospel of Our Time is "Too Helpful" 

This is not a new problem; it comes in waves, and it seems to me that we are in the turmoil of a humongous wave right now.  Why do we want to leave the true gospel, and look to things that seem satisfying but aren't?

from sacredsandwich.com :
HOW THE USE OF SOME BIBLE VERSIONS CAN TWIST GOD'S TRUTH

William Tyndale, the martyr, who passionately fought for the Bible to be translated into English for the sake of the common man, would be dumbfounded to see how many Bible translations are available today for the masses. By all outward appearances, it would seem that his vision to supply God’s word to the lay person, including the lowly ploughboy, has been fully realized. Based on numbers alone, it might be assumed that Tyndale, if alive today, would be overjoyed with this modern proliferation of Bibles. But would he?

This is a very good article and Sacred Sandwich provides links to learn more about various translations and paraphrases.

Last Sunday I visited Abbey Baptist Church for the second time.  I only took the two youngest with me as we couldn't get the older ones up (time change) and David went back to our regular church after dropping me and the littlies off.   As the pastor was away the pulpit was filled by Mr David Chapman who is secretary to the Association of Grace Baptist Churches (SE).  

With his permission I am posting my notes from the sermon both to help me in remembering the ideas, mostly, but also I thought they might be helpful to others. 

If there was a title, I missed it, and I know I missed some other things but I did try to get most of the points.  The day was the anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Great Britain, so Mr Chapman talked about that to the children before they were dismissed, and then started his sermon by reading all of Philemon, which is the letter Paul wrote to a slave-owner, as he returned Philemon's runaway slave Onesimus to him.  He paused to point out verse 6 as worthy of note, but did not preach on it.

Then he turned to II Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17.    Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.  (ESV, although the reading was from the NIV I believe.)

I'll type my notes and try to fill in some missing thoughts as I remember them, putting those in italics:

Have you ever wished to be a better person?

Have you met with a good person, seen the Lord in Scripture, or sinned and regretted it, or contemplated God's judgment?  (and thus be provoked to be a better person)

Sadly for many that's as far as it goes.   They have fears or excuses - "I know if I tried to be a Christian I could never keep it up,"  " You can't change human nature"

(Here he gave a quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn about human nature changing as fast as a geologic epoch, I believe, but I couldn't find it on Google.)

Jeremiah has a verse about the leopard not being able to change its spots. 

Some people don't try to change, others give it a go (like with New Years resolutions), join AA, etc. Failures lead to disappointment.  In trying to change, we have to battle with our sinful nature, and satan.

Again, some people don't try to change, some people try - and some people change the goalposts.  Seeing that they can't meet God's standards, they water them down.

All those ways fall far short of what Paul says in II Corinthians 5:17.  Paul expects God to bring about such a change in a person that it would seem he were a new person. 

How?  God sent Jesus.  From a verse in Hebrews -  the Son was tempted in every way we are, yet He never sinned.  He was condemned, crucified, and died.  He paid the penalty sinners deserved for their sins.  God raised Him to show His acceptance of His payment.    Romans 4:25    He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (NIV)

How can this be real in my life?  The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, convinces us that Jesus died for us and if we confess our sins He will forgive us.  He changes us so that though previously we resisted it we now receive the message.

(Mr Chapman went into a new part and I kind of missed the bridge into it - either I was thinking about what he just said, or was still writing it down!  He started talking about branches grafted into trees and mentioned how his father-in-law used to do this with apple trees.)

We're grafted into Christ - brought into a living relationship with Christ (I'm fuzzy on if I got that right.).

If in Christ we need to go on and draw on all the resources He has (like a graft draws on the tree):

1.  The Holy Spirit - Ezekiel 36:26, II Corinthians 3:17, 18

2.  The Bible - God gave us the Bible but also teachers

3.  The example of Jesus - if we want to know what God would do we can see what Jesus said and did

4.  Our fellow Christians - we need to listen how others have applied God's word to their lives

He provides the resources that we need to be the people He wants us to be. He uses them to show us where we sin, and to remind us of forgiveness.  He encourages us and strengthens us. 

Sometimes the evidence that one is in Christ takes time to show, other times it is immediate, but it will happen.  Paul saw this change in Onesimus.  Onesimus went back - 20 years later he was a leader in the church at Ephesus. (I did not know this, and need to check this out. )

Our aim is to be the people God wants us to be.  Are we a new person?  Do we have a new awareness of God?  Developing character in Christ? Do we have new: principles, purpose, and hope?

End

I'm throwing a question out for you all.  What do you do when Bible reading time gets dull and you are having a hard time? 

I have had times like that, but that is not the case now.  I'm asking because it came up in a conversation my husband had with someone lately, and she said at those times it was helpful to use a paraphrase. 

Now, there are some decent paraphrases out there I'm sure, but there are also some terrible ones.  Which do you think are good, and which are rotten?

I'd really like some comments on this, on what you do, and would recommend for someone really struggling with reading their Bible, and also, do you recommend any paraphrases.

I'll post my answers another time.  I might update this post to include your comments, or leave them in the comment box (I am not sure) - or I might even put the answers into another post.

(h/t - Big Orange Truck)

A great article on the ineffectiveness of evangelism on the mission field, by Garry Weaver, is found on his blog Amazing Grace and Old Chevys.

I think Garry nails it on the head when he explains why so many on the mission field went back on seeming professions of faith after "evangelism" :

... they had not been enlightened by the Holy Spirit as to who Jesus really is and what He demands. They had not been convicted of their wretched and hopelessly lost condition. They had not been irresistibly drawn to Him by the Spirit in repentance and surrender to His Lordship. There is no substitute for that. That only comes through faithfully praying for His power and anointing, and by the faithful proclamation of His Gospel, which is "...the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes..."

Sounds like folk around here, too. 

I came across this article this evening and thought it would be good to share.  I think it has excellent points and advice.

There's a sheep born every second.